Mount Qomolangma,

the main peak of the Himalayas and the highest peak in the world, lies on the border of China's Tibet and Nepal with its northern slope in China. A 1975 survey by Chinese alpinists put its precise height as 8,848.13 metres. Shaped like a pyramid, the snow-covered peak is crisscrossed by several hug glaciers, the longest 26 kilometers.mount qomolangma, which means "Goddess the Third" in Tibetan, is called Sagarmatha by the Indian general survey office in 1855 under the direction of the British arbitrarily named the mountain after its surveyor-general, Sir George Everest.In 1952, the Chinese government renamed it Mount. Qomolangma. Long an attraction to outstanding world alpinists, the mountain has been open to foreign mountaineers on the Chinese side since 1980, Chinese mountaineers have twice scaled its summit from the northern slope; on May 25,1960 and May 27, 1975

The himalayas,

the most majestic and highest mountain range in the world, lie principally in China. Also the longest mountain range in China,they stretch for 2400 kilometres from West to east and 200-300 kilometres from north to south in China's Tibet, Pakistan,India, Nepal ,Sikkim and Bhutan. The main China of the Himalayas has an average elevation of more then 6000 metres, far exceeding the average height of any other mountain range in the world. Forty Himalayan peaks exceed 7,000 metres and 11 pass the 8,000-m. mark. mount qomolangma, towering 8,848.13 m. on the China-Nepal border, is the highest in the world. The Himalayan peaks are covered with ice and snow all year round (Himalaya means "abode of snow" in Tibetan), their glaciers cover some 10,000 square kilometers. The northwestern slopes of the Himalayas are dry and cold, with sparse plant growth, while the southern slopes receive plentiful precipitation. a sub-tropical scene is not unusual in Zayu and Medog areas in southern Tibet.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences through several extensive surveys of the Himalayas has collected a wealth of scientific data. Discoveries of numerous fossils of marine animals and plants, including those of a huge ichthyosaur 160 million Years old found at an altitude of 4,800 metres, reveal that the Himalayas were once a vast expanse of sea. The mountain range has continued to rice in elevation at a yearly speed of 0.33-1.27 cm - which indicates that it is once of the world's youngest range

FAMOUS MOUNTAINS AND PEAKS

Of the world's 14 mountains exceeding 8,000 metres, 9 are china or on the borders. Many of china's world-renowned mountains are geographically important, some providing headwaters for major rivers and some forming climatic or river basin divides. Some of them, though not prominent on the map, are popular scenic spots or summer resorts; while some are known far and wide for their historical monuments or religious relics. Still others attract alienists with their awesome height. Over a hundred mountains in China exceed 7,000 metres and more than a thousand exceed 6,000 metres.

The northwest-southeast and north-south ranges,

mainly in the west, include two groups: the Qinlian Mountains between Gansu and Qinghai provinces and the Altay on the border between China and Mongolia and the Soviet Unian

are the Helan and Liapan mountains in Ningxia and other provinces and the Hengduan mountains straddling Sichuan, Yunnan and Tibet. The Himalayas join with the Hengduan and other ranges to form a huge arc-shaped mountain chain.

The northeast-southwest ranges

consists also of three groups, mostly in the low-lying east : In the western groups, the greater Hinggan mountains lie between the inner Mongolia Plateau and the northeast plain; the Taihang mountains between the Loess Plateau and the North China plain; the Wushan Mountains on the Sichuan-Hubei border; and the Xuefeng Mountains in western Hunan Province.

In the Middle group, the Changbai Mountains are east of the Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjing provinces and the Wyo Mountains are on the Fujian-Jiangxi border.

The eastern group consists of the Taiwan Mountains. The northeast-southwest ranges, the Greater Hinggan and Taihang chains in particular, stand as barriers in the way of the moist air currents from the sea, affecting the distribution of precipitation in China.

The west-east ranges

consist mainly of three groups: The northern group includes the Tianshan range which crosses central Xinjiang, and the Yinshan range which extends across the middle groups includes the Kunlun range straddling the Xinjiang-Tibet border, and the Qinling range, cutting across the central part of the country; and the southern group consists of the Nanling mountains on the Human-Jiangxi-Guangdong-Guangxi border.

The Himalayas generally run in a west-east direction. The west-east ranges are important geographical boundaries in China. The Tianshan Mountains divide Xinjiang into southern and northern parts; the Yinshan mountains are part of the boundary line between the interior and boundary line between the first and second steps of the staircase in china's topographical outline; the qinling Mountains are the watershed of the changjiang and Huanghe river systems and the geographical dividing line between northern and southern china; and the Nanlinf Mountains are the watershed of the changjing zhujiang rivers and a natural geographical divide in southern China.